Chron: Evolution of basketball continuing

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/1645375

By FRAN BLINEBURY
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
It didn't take the indoor fireworks for it to be an explosive event.

It didn't take Chinese pop star Coco Lee offering her version of the national anthem to hit all of the high notes.

It didn't take the drummers and the new uniforms on the dancers and the rest of the bells and whistles attached like so many sequins to the Rockets' home opener to make the night sparkle.

It took one move.

Yao Ming took the ball on the left baseline with his back to the basket in front of Mamadou N'diaye of the Raptors. He faked a spin to his left toward the middle of the court, whirled like a dervish back to his left, ducked under the outstretched and helpless arm of N'diaye, took one long stride and layed in a perfect finger roll.

The start of something big.

Huge.

This is the reason the Rockets pounced on Yao with the No. 1 pick in the draft: for freewheeling, athletic plays like that.

This is why his face has been on billboards and on the covers of national magazines and in TV spots all over the globe the past four months: a future filled with the possibility of so much more.

"Don't make me say it," Steve Francis said. "Don't make me use the name to describe that move. But I looked into the stands and over to our bench right after, and I saw it in everybody's eyes, on their lips."

Hakeem Olajuwon.

It was positively Dream-like in execution and flair.

Yes, Yao is some 17 years, two NBA championships and so many milestones behind his pedigreed predecessor. But there was something much more familiar than his just being the big man in the middle of a Rockets lineup.

When Olajuwon made that kind of move, it was astounding, a symphony of motion. When Yao -- seven inches taller -- makes the same one, it's mind-boggling.

Let's not leap too far with projections or predictions about how far he can go and how far he can take the Rockets. But let's also not get bogged down in so much of the negative, cynical cracks that fill the 24-hour news cycle on cable television and the talk-radio shows.

His head is swimming from the deep water in which Yao has been dropped since landing in Houston two weeks ago. He's got a body that has to be dog-tired, a language barrier to overcome and a new culture to shock him every day, yet he is making giant steps of progress on the court and in terms of fitting in.

"He's just like me, only 7-5 and Chinese," Francis said.

A statement that on the surface sounds equal parts laughable and possible, if you break it down.

Yao is a gym rat, just like Francis, the first one in the gym and dressed for practice when the other Rockets arrive.

He is a driven, fiery competitor, just like Francis, who wants to suck up the things that will make him better.

He also possesses the singular athleticism of Francis. Just as little Stevie Franchise can take the ball to the hoop against taller defenders, just as he can pull down double-digit rebounds at 6-3, Yao can do things that are unique for a player his size.

"I've never seen anybody make that move that he made down there on the baseline," said Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich. "At least not anybody as big as him."

Yao is the next step up the evolutionary ladder of big men in a game in which our perception of what is possible is always being tested, in which they long ago stopped pushing the envelope and broke right through it.

Years ago, whoever thought there would be a 6-9 point guard like Magic Johnson, a 7-1 mountain with legs like Shaquille O'Neal, a ferocious, all-over-the-court predator like Michael Jordan?

Yao says he is in the early stages of learning about the NBA, and that is true when he fails to raise his arms to defend against a hook shot or reaches and draws a foul or is lost on the floor on offense.

He finished with eight points, shot 4-for-7 and grabbed four rebounds in 24 minutes, numbers that drew appreciative applause from the sellout crowd of 16,285 that had come to see him.

What he has shown in flashes in games and a few more times in practices are the special skills, the intuitive moves that can fill your head with possibilities.

"Look at our game," said Rudy T. "At the Olympics, I saw Vince Carter jump right over the head of a guy who was 7-3 and dunk. Look at Tracy McGrady and the things he does. He's a video game. Steve Francis with his jumping ability."

Now a Chinese import drops in hook shots, hits short jumpers and crackles the power lines on the baseline.

"The game is going places that I would never have dreamed when I was coming up, or even a few years ago," Tomjanovich said. "I saw Yao make that move; I thought, `Uh-oh.' "

A different kind of fireworks.